Sri Lanka Police says number of complaints against renowned English teacher Sakwithi Ranasingha has rapidly risen. Police spokesman SSP Ranjith Gunasekara said that the number of complaints against the Ranasingha who is accused of fraud of over 5 billion rupees had risen up to 4220.

Ranasingha has been engaged not only in teaching English but also in the real estate business and owned unregistered finance company.

Over 4,400 people have invested in his financial organizations, which provided attractive interest rates to customers, according to the Police.

Police spokesman said that the Ranasinghe has reportedly fled the country taking his family with him. Extensive investigations are being conducted into the whereabouts of the accused.

In an article published quite widely in the Indian press and also picked up by the Sri Lankan press on 12th September 2008, Mr. B Raman analyses the recent attack by the LTTE on the Sri Lankan army’s Northern base at Vavuniya(260 kms north of Colombo). The Article while admitting that the LTTE has lost badly in the war(what he terms as a war of attrition), his article seemed designed to prop up the credibility of the LTTE than to decipher what may have really happened from empirical evidence.

He says “Even after allowing for the usual exaggeration of the spokesman for the Armed forces….” He points out the conflicting nature of certain accounts given by the Armed forces at different times without appreciating the fact that when an attack takes place it take some time to asses the actual extent of the damage. Therefore the census and statistics of the damage may differ at different stages. He further states,

“While the Sri Lankan armed forces repeatedly exaggerate their success and play down their losses, the LTTE generally gives a factual account of the battles. Even if it does badly in the battles it does not try to cover its failures. This is one of the reasons for the high credibility enjoyed by the LTTE in the eyes of its cadres Tamil Diaspora and the Tamil population.” Mr Raman should know that the LTTE does not have to earn the credibility of the Tamil Diaspora, because the LTTE is the armed wing of the Tamil Diaspora that helps the Diaspora to stay and swell them abroad.

Then he goes on to give his commentary based on the LTTE version. In order to give credibility to the LTTE version he states ‘as confirmed by independent observer’ but he never discloses who these independent sources are. Further the statement that he attributes to the ‘Sri Lanka Navy spokesmen’ is not their in the Navy communiqué. Hence these are clear prejudicial reflections made by Indian, Tamil and non Tamil, journalists with the view to influence the average Indian reader.

In actual fact there is no glaring difference between the version of the LTTE and that of the Armed forces in the end analysis because the Armed forces have admitted that there was damage to the radar system and 11 army personals were killed. But the writer makes a case to say how reliable the LTTE version was. According to him the Armed Forces maintain that one of the two LTTE plains was shot over Mulaitivu area while the LTTE has denied it. And he makes a lot of circumstantial evidence to say why it is not possible. However the LTTE itself have now admitted in its Tamil.net website that one the aircrafts that was sent on the mission did not return and the wreckage was found at the crash site.

The Sri Lanka Air Force further highlighted in its investigation report that the reason why the approaching LTTE planes could not be detected by the radar was that the Radar the Indian Government ‘gifted’ to Sri Lankan was not capable of detecting the low altitude flying LTTE planes. The report further goes to point that this situation could have been averted had the Sri Lanka Air Force purchased the Chinese radar as was originally planned.

The prejudice in Mr. Raman’s article is so obvious that every time he refers to a success by the Sri Lankan armed forces he qualifies such success adding that ‘due to the modern equipment supplied by Pakistan and China’ while attributing the resisting and resilient qualities of the LTTE to ‘their dedication commitment and diligence.’ For him the attack was a ‘spectacular attack’. This prompts us to pose the question to Mr. Raman, whether he attributes the recent success of the Sri Lankan Cricket team (chosen from 19 million persons) against it’s Indian counterpart (chosen from 1.3 billion population), also to Chinese bats and balls used by the Sri Lankan team?

Mr. Raman is the Retd. Additional Secretary to the Cabinet secretariat of the Government of India and currently he is the Director Institute of Topical Studies Chennai.The question the writer would wish to pose to Mr Raman and other such Indian writer who eulogies the LTTE and its truthfulness is that, could hey believe at least in50 % of what the LTTE says in its book “The Satanic Forces”. If so they have to admit that the Indian Forces, their own security forces, are the worst forces a country can have on this globe! Little do these journalists realize that buy attributing such credibility to the LTTE that have made no bones about its criminal and uncivilized tendencies they are questioning the reputation of the armed forces of their own country. Yes, the LTTE is honest, especially when they kill because, they really kill. The massacres of LTTE have always been spectacular, even that of Shri Rajiv Gandhi.

od transfusion kits, Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena, MP, said that he would bring this to the notice of the WHO.

Although the racket was initially believed to be confined to the National Blood Centre at Narahenpita, Jayawardena claimed that he had been able to gather enough evidence to suggest that the use of outdated kits was widespread.

In a brief interview with "News-Lanka", he said that he would meet the Resident Representative of the WHO based in Colombo today (22), to brief him of the situation. The Sri Lankan Health Minister is the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the WHO.

Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva couldn’t simply wash his hands off this criminal negligence of responsibility on the part of the Health Ministry, the MP said. The interdiction of four personnel, including the director of the National Blood Centre wasn’t adequate, he said, emphasising the urgent need to conduct a comprehensive survey to ascertain the impact of the use of outdated blood transfusion kits on both blood donors and receivers.

The Gampaha District MP said that the Health Secretary, Dr. Athula Kahadaliyanage had ordered the interdiction of personnel on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission (PSC).

Responding to our queries, he said the police were reluctant to investigate the incident as they believed the government was behind the racket. According to him, after receiving information of the involvement of an ambulance driver attached to the Kandy General Hospital in the racket, he had visited the Matale Police as the suspect lived there. "Matale Police were reluctant to act on my information. They wanted me to seek the assistance of the ASP in charge of the area," the MP said.

Referring to the recent admission by Police Chief Jayantha Wickremaratne that the public had lost confidence in the police, particularly its emergency services due to the lethargic attitude, the MP said that subsequently, on the ASP’s intervention, Matale police had searched the suspect’s home before declaring that there was nothing suspicious, the MP said. The MP who had accompanied the police, joined the search and quickly founds two bags full of pieces of blood transfusion kits. The recovery was made in the presence of the suspect’s son. Subsequently, the suspect had surrendered to Matale police and was remanded after being produced before a Magistrate.

The MP said that he had also received information to the effect that outdated kits were kept at the blood crosschecking lab of the Kandy General Hospital. "But I was unable to check the lab, as its keys were with a labourer as claimed by the Senior Medical Laboratory Technician," he said.

He said that outdated blood transfusion kits had been used on both donors and patients at many hospitals, including Kandy General, National Blood Centre, National Hospital, Anuradhapura and Kamburugamuwa in the Matara district.

A senior health ministry official said that Jayawardena shouldn’t seek political mileage by targeting the minister. Fielding questions, he said, he accused the National Blood Centre bosses of misleading the minister when the print and electronic media revealed the use of outdated kits. He said that the Bribery Commission had initiated an investigation while the Auditor General too, was conducting inquiries.

Both Jayawardena and the official admitted that the crux of the issue was the acquisition of a large stock of blood transfusion kits, which were just ten months short of being outdated. They said that the ministry could order stocks with a three year life time. The MP said that the ministry, after ordering an old stock which would have financially benefited the powers that be, had distributed them to hospitals.